Download or read book Marie Antoinette written by Evelyne Lever and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2001-09-24 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of the French queen explores the intrigue surrounding her life from her birth, through her unhappy marriage, her lavish life at Versailles, to the events leading up to her death by beheading during the French Revolution.

Download or read book Queen of France written by Andre Castelot and published by Ishi Press. This book was released on 2009-11 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the biography of one of the most tragic women in History. It is the story of a frivolous young girl who threw wild parties and spent a lot of her husband's money and for that reason, and that reason alone, she had her head chopped off in public. The back cover photo here shows Marie Antoinette being given her last rights by a clergyman as she was waiting before the guillotine for the executioners to cut off her head, and while a crowd of thousands watched. Her last words were one of apology to one of her executioners, when she accidentally stepped on his foot. All of the events of the Life of Marie Antoinette are brilliantly explained in this biography by Andre Castelot. The most haunting and harrowing pages of the biography are Castelot's darkly etched picture of the Queen in the culminating moments of her life. Perhaps it is not in the least a paradox that one of the most arrantly self-indulgent women should, in her adversity, provide one of the most memorable images of mother love."

Download or read book Marie Antoinette written by John Hardman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “wonderfully gripping biography” digs beneath the famous legend to present a nuanced and revealing portrait of a serious-mined monarch (Allan Massie, Wall Street Journal). As the last Queen of France before the French Revolution, Marie-Antoinette was mistrusted and reviled in her own time, while today she is portrayed as a lightweight incapable of understanding the events that engulfed her. But who was she really? In this new account, John Hardman redresses the balance and sheds fresh light on her story. Hardman shows how Marie-Antoinette played a significant but misunderstood role in the crisis of the monarchy. Drawing on new sources, he describes how she refused to prioritize the aggressive foreign policy of her mother, bravely took over the helm from her faltering husband, and, when revolution broke out, worked closely with repentant radicals to give the constitutional monarchy a fighting chance. For the first time, Hardman demonstrates exactly what influence Marie-Antoinette had and when and how she exerted it. Named a 2020 Book of the Year by The Spectator

Download or read book Queen of Fashion written by Caroline Weber and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2007-10-02 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dazzling new vision of the ever-fascinating queen, a dynamic young historian reveals how Marie Antoinette's bold attempts to reshape royal fashion changed the future of France Marie Antoinette has always stood as an icon of supreme style, but surprisingly none of her biographers have paid sustained attention to her clothes. In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains through lively, illuminating new research the political controversies that her clothing provoked. Weber surveys Marie Antoinette's "Revolution in Dress," covering each phase of the queen's tumultuous life, beginning with the young girl, struggling to survive Versailles's rigid traditions of royal glamour (twelve-foot-wide hoopskirts, whalebone corsets that crushed her organs). As queen, Marie Antoinette used stunning, often extreme costumes to project an image of power and wage war against her enemies. Gradually, however, she began to lose her hold on the French when she started to adopt "unqueenly" outfits (the provocative chemise) that, surprisingly, would be adopted by the revolutionaries who executed her. Weber's queen is sublime, human, and surprising: a sometimes courageous monarch unwilling to allow others to determine her destiny. The paradox of her tragic story, according to Weber, is that fashion—the vehicle she used to secure her triumphs—was also the means of her undoing. Weber's book is not only a stylish and original addition to Marie Antoinette scholarship, but also a moving, revelatory reinterpretation of one of history's most controversial figures.

Download or read book Marie Antoinette written by Helene Delalex and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marie-Antoinette (1755–1793) continues to fascinate historians, writers, and filmmakers more than two centuries after her death. She became a symbol of the excesses of France’s aristocracy in the eighteenth century that helped pave the way to dissolution of the country’s monarchy. The great material privileges she enjoyed and her glamorous role as an arbiter of fashion and a patron of the arts in the French court, set against her tragic death on the scaffold, still spark the popular imagination. In this gorgeously illustrated volume, the authors find a fresh and nuanced approach to Marie-Antoinette’s much-told story through the objects and locations that made up the fabric of her world. They trace the major events of her life, from her upbringing in Vienna as the archduchess of Austria, to her ascension to the French throne, to her execution at the hands of the revolutionary tribunal. The exquisite objects that populated Marie-Antoinette’s rarefied surroundings—beautiful gowns, gilt-mounted furniture, chinoiserie porcelains, and opulent tableware—are depicted. But so too are possessions representing her personal pursuits and private world, including her sewing kit, her harp, her children’s toys, and even the simple cotton chemise she wore as a condemned prisoner. The narrative is sprinkled with excerpts from her correspondence, which offer a glimpse into her personality and daily life. Visually rich and engaging, Marie-Antoinette offers a fascinating look at the multifaceted life of France’s last, ill-fated queen.

Download or read book A Day with Marie Antoinette written by Hélène Delalex and published by Rizzoli Publications. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring personal correspondence, lavish illustrations, and a wealth of unpublished material, this handsome slipcased volume reveals an intimate portrait of Marie Antoinette, her personal collections, and Versailles. Marie Antoinette was a mirror of her time. Never has a queen been so passionately admired and adulated, then hunted, vilified, and defamed. Spanning her tragically brief yet passionate life—from the young queen playing a shepherdess on stage, unaware of the turmoil in the capital, to France’s guillotined “martyr queen"—the author demystifies the legend, unveiling the woman behind the queen, and the wife and mother behind the sovereign. Readers will experience the palatial luxury of the queen’s Versailles by tracing Marie Antoinette’s footsteps through the royal residence, as well as discovering her voice through rare letters and encountering little-known works in her private art collection.

Download or read book Marie Antoinette written by Antonia Fraser and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2002-11-12 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: France's iconic queen, Marie Antoinette, wrongly accused of uttering the infamous "Let them eat cake," was alternately revered and reviled during her lifetime. For centuries since, she has been the object of debate, speculation, and the fascination so often accorded illustrious figures in history. Married in mere girlhood, this essentially lighthearted child was thrust onto the royal stage and commanded by circumstance to play a significant role in European history. Antonia Fraser's lavish and engaging portrait excites compassion and regard for all aspects of the queen, immersing the reader not only in the coming-of-age of a graceful woman, but in the culture of an unparalleled time and place.

Download or read book Marie Antoinette and the Last Garden of Versailles written by Christian Duvernois and published by Rizzoli International Publications. This book was released on 2008 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marie-Antoinette has been idolized as the height of eighteenth-century French style and vilified as the spark that ignited the French Revolution. This book departs from such traditional interpretations of the infamous queen’s reign and chooses to reflect on the humanistic aspects of her private realm. To escape the formalities and royal obligations of Louis XVI’s court, Marie-Antoinette created a private realm of pleasure for herself at the Petit Trianon and Hameau, where she planted the first Anglo-Chinese garden; created a trysting grotto; a working farm; and revolutionized architecture and gardening trends for the century to come. Marie-Antoinette’s entire private domain and its story are told in beautiful photographic detail by François Halard for the first time since its recent restoration and accompanied by well-researched texts by garden expert Christian Duvernois.

Download or read book Marie Antoinette written by Hourly History and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-08-08 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marie AntoinetteHer name was Marie Antoinette. She was the last queen of France and among the most notorious of royalty ever to wear the crown. But besides the tales that would make the national enquirer blush, just what do we know about Marie Antoinette? While the peasants of France were starving for lack of bread did she really say, "Let them eat cake!"? Or was it all a carefully crafted smear campaign? Inside you will read about...✓ Groomed to Become Queen ✓ The Failed Wedding Night ✓ Madame Deficit ✓ The Roots of Revolution ✓ Under the Protection of Lafayette ✓ The Last French King and Queen And much more! Animosity against Marie Antoinette, the Austrian-born woman that many French citizens viewed as a transplanted upstart, had been brewing for several years. But was there any truth to their claims of the queen squandering resources and neglecting the lives of her subjects? In this book we seek to cut through centuries of bias and preconceived notions when it comes to Marie Antoinette. Never mind what you may think you know about this sensational sovereign, here we seek to find the real person behind the historical quips and catchphrases. Come along as we rediscover the life and legend of the ill-fated last queen of France-Marie Antoinette.

Download or read book Confessions of Marie Antoinette written by Juliet Grey and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel for fans of Philippa Gregory and Michelle Moran, Confessions of Marie Antoinette blends rich historical detail with searing drama, bringing to life the first years of the French Revolution and the final days of the legendary French queen. Versailles, 1789. As the burgeoning rebellion reaches the palace gates, Marie Antoinette finds her privileged and peaceful life swiftly upended by violence. Once her loyal subjects, the people of France now seek to overthrow the crown, placing the heirs of the Bourbon dynasty in mortal peril. Displaced to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the royal family is propelled into the heart of the Revolution. There, despite a few staunch allies, they are surrounded by cunning spies and vicious enemies. Yet despite the political and personal threats against her, Marie Antoinette remains, above all, a devoted wife and mother, standing steadfastly by her husband, Louis XVI, and protecting their young son and daughter. And though the queen secretly attempts to arrange her family’s rescue from the clutches of the rebels, she finds that they can neither outrun the dangers encircling them nor escape their shocking fate. Advance praise for Confessions of Marie Antoinette “Juliet Grey brings her trilogy on Marie Antoinette’s life to a triumphant finale, depicting with sensitivity and compelling vividness the collapse of a bygone glamorous world and the courageous transformation of its ill-fated queen.”—C. W. Gortner, author of The Queen’s Vow “A heartfelt journey with Marie Antoinette in her wrenching last days . . . We see the end looming that is still veiled from her eyes, and knowing her hopes are in vain makes it all the more poignant. Far from the ‘let them eat cake’ woman of legend, Juliet Grey’s Marie Antoinette reveals herself to be a person we can admire for her courage, her loyalty, and her love of her family and her adopted country, France.”—Margaret George Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.

Download or read book The Wicked Queen written by Chantal Thomas and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chantal Thomas presents the history of the mythification of one of the most infamous queens in all history, whose execution still fascinates us today. In The Wicked Queen, Chantal Thomas presents the history of the mythification of one of the most infamous queens in all history, whose execution still fascinates us today. Almost as soon as Marie-Antoinette, archduchess of Austria, was brought to France as the bride of Louis XVI in 1771, she was smothered in images. In a monarchy increasingly under assault, the charm and horror of her feminine body and her political power as a foreign intruder turned Marie-Antoinette into an alien other. Marie-Antoinette's mythification, argues Thomas, must be interpreted as the misogynist demonization of women's power and authority in revolutionary France.In a series of pamphlets written from the 1770s until her death in 1793, Marie-Antoinette is portrayed as a spendthrift, a libertine, an orgiastic lesbian, and a poisoner and infant murderess. In her analyses of these pamphlets, seven of which appear here in translation for the first time, Thomas reconstructs how the mounting hallucinatory and libelous discourse culminated in the inevitable destruction of what had become the counterrevolutionary symbol par excellence. The Wicked Queen exposes the elaborate process by which the myth of Marie-Antoinette emerged as a crucial element in the successful staging of the French Revolution.

Download or read book Marie Antoinette written by Adrien Goetz and published by Memoire. This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marie-Antoinette, the last queen of France, fascinated her contemporaries with her temperament and independent spirit, her escapades and her frivolity. Born in Austria, she married the future Lois XVI at age 15, and then charmed her entire court with her small blonde build and grace. Crowned queen in 1774, she quickly stepped forward and upstaged her king. A great lover and rebel, she lost herself in gambling and social activity, angering her subjects who would never forgive her excessive expenses. From her powder pink boudoirs, to her apartments filled with lacquer furniture, from the Trianon, where she brought her lovers, to her milk house, where she played farmer's wife, this book traces the journey of the woman who left her mark on her time with a feminism that was both flirtatious and glamorous.

Download or read book Marie Antoinette Princess of Versailles Austria France 1769 The Royal Diaries written by Kathryn Lasky and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Newbery Honor author Kathryn Lasky's MARIE ANTOINETTE is back in print with a gorgeous new package! To forge an incredibly powerful political alliance, thirteen-year-old Marie Antoinette of Austria is betrothed to Dauphin Louis Auguste, who will one day be the king of France. To prepare the princess for becoming queen, she must be trained to write, read, speak French, dress, act . . . even breathe. Things become more difficult for her when she is separated from her family and sent to the court of Versailles to meet her future husband. Opinionated and headstrong Marie Antoinette must find a way to fit in at the royal court, and get along with her fiance. The future of Austria and France falls upon her shoulders. But as she lives a luxurious life inside the palace gates, out on the streets the people of France face hunger and poverty. Through the pages of her diary, Marie captures the isolation, the lavish parties and gowns, her struggle to find her place, and the years leading up her ascendance of the throne . . . and a revolution.

Download or read book The Bad Queen written by Carolyn Meyer and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2010-04-12 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dizzying rise and horrific downfall of the last queen of France from the New York Times bestselling author of Duchessina. From the moment she was betrothed to the dauphin of France at age fourteen, perfection was demanded of Marie-Antoinette. Desperate for affection and subjected to constant scrutiny, this spirited young woman can’t help but want to let loose with elaborate parties, scandalous fashions, and even a forbidden love affair. Meanwhile, the peasants of France are suffering from increasing poverty and becoming outraged. They want to make the queen pay for her reckless extravagance—with her life. Includes historical notes, an author’s note, and bibliography “Historical-fiction fans will be swept up in the cruel fates of the monarchs and political forces, particularly as the drama escalates into horror.”—Booklist “Beautifully written from the point of view of Marie-Antoinette, and then from the point of view of her daughter, this is fascinating book that fans of historical fiction will find captivating.”—Through the Looking Glass Children’s Book Reviews “This novel about the ill-fated queen covers her life from age 13 when, as an Austrian princess, she prepares to marry the French dauphin to her death by guillotine in 1793 . . . Meyer writes in a lighthearted, casual style, vividly portraying the historical era and aptly defining unfamiliar vocabulary.”—School Library Journal

Download or read book Marie Antoinette at Petit Trianon written by Denise Maior-Barron and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marie Antoinette at Petit Trianon challenges common perceptions of the last Queen of France, appraising the role she played in relation to the events of French Revolution through an original analysis of contemporary heritage practices and visitor perceptions at her former home, the Petit Trianon. Controversy and martyrdom have placed Marie Antoinette’s image within a spectrum of cultural caricatures that range from taboo to iconic. With a foundation in critical heritage studies, this book examines the diverse range of contemporary images portraying Marie Antoinette’s historical character, showing how they affect the interpretation and perception of the Petit Trianon. By considering both producers and receivers of these cultural heritage exponents - Marie Antoinette’s historical figure and the historic house museum of the Petit Trianon - the book expands current understandings of twenty-first century cultural heritage perceptions in relation to tourism and popular culture. A useful case study for academics, researchers and postgraduate students of cultural heritage, it will also be of interest to historians, keepers of house museums and those working in the field of tourism studies.

Download or read book Marie Antoinette s Darkest Days written by Will Bashor and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling book begins on the 2nd of August 1793, the day Marie Antoinette was torn from her family’s arms and escorted from the Temple to the Conciergerie, a thick-walled fortress turned prison. It was also known as the “waiting room for the guillotine” because prisoners only spent a day or two here before their conviction and subsequent execution. The ex-queen surely knew her days were numbered, but she could never have known that two and a half months would pass before she would finally stand trial and be convicted of the most ungodly charges. Will Bashor traces the final days of the prisoner registered only as Widow Capet, No. 280, a time that was a cruel mixture of grandeur, humiliation, and terror. Marie Antoinette’s reign amidst the splendors of the court of Versailles is a familiar story, but her final imprisonment in a fetid, dank dungeon is a little-known coda to a once-charmed life. Her seventy-six days in this terrifying prison can only be described as the darkest and most horrific of the fallen queen’s life, vividly recaptured in this richly researched history.

Download or read book Marie Antoinette s Head written by Will Bashor and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marie Antoinette has remained atop the popular cultural landscape for centuries for the daring in style and fashion that she brought to 18th century France. For the better part of the queen’s reign, one man was entrusted with the sole responsibility of ensuring that her coiffure was at its most ostentatious best. Who was this minister of fashion who wielded such tremendous influence over the queen’s affairs? Winner of the Adele Mellen Prize for Distinguished Scholarship, Marie Antoinette’s Head: The Royal Hairdresser, The Queen, and the Revolution charts the rise of Leonard Autie from humble origins as a country barber in the south of France to the inventor of the Pouf and premier hairdresser to Queen Marie-Antoinette. By unearthing a variety of sources from the 18th and 19th centuries, including memoirs (including Léonard’s own), court documents, and archived periodicals the author, French History professor and expert Will Bashor, tells Autie’s mostly unknown story. Bashor chronicles Leonard’s story, the role he played in the life of his most famous client, and the chaotic and history-making world in which he rose to prominence. Besides his proximity to the queen, Leonard also had a most fascinating life filled with sex (he was the only man in a female dominated court), seduction, intrigue, espionage, theft, exile, treason, and possibly, execution.